Publicly available self-directed health care stations have been available at varying levels of complexity and sophistication for many years. Do-it-yourself blood pressure monitoring stations are often available in or near retail pharmacies, doctors' offices, corporate facilities, and retail centers such as shopping malls and strip malls.
The field of medicine has long employed health care screening to diagnose and track patients' health. An annual physical examination is a well-known part of patient medical care.
Hospitals, health clinics, and pharmacies, in addition to having an active role in supplying medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, have actively promoted various health care screenings and wellness programs. Screening programs are sometimes offered with the help of other health care providers or coordinated on a national basis with groups such as the American Lung Association, the American Diabetes Association, and the American Podiatric Medical Association.
Health care screening devices in hospitals, physician's offices, businesses, and the like, in combination with the growing number of home diagnostic kits that are available have increased the efficiencies in health care delivery. Large drug store operators have increasingly encouraged individual testing by making available in-store diagnostic testing devices. For example, customers waiting to fill a prescription are often encouraged to check their blood pressure while they wait with a blood pressure measurement/screening device, and pharmacists who fill high-blood pressure prescriptions to customers often encourage their customers to regularly check their blood pressure. Such customers often use blood pressure measurement/screening devices that are provided in the drug store.
To increase attention to the importance of health care screening, many medical and health product retailers offer medical tests and screening for consumers visiting their stores. Most commonly, the retailers check cholesterol levels and blood pressure, although other tests are available. In addition to supplying a valuable customer service, in-store testing effectively educates consumers about various health problems that can be better managed by a regimen that includes monitoring. Typically consumers are unaware of the technological advances that have made health care screenings feasible in the clinical, retail, and home settings. Pharmacies and drug retailers have generally found that the availability of screening test devices in the stores increase traffic and cultivate customer loyalty.
The offer of in-store testing commonly is highly popular among customers and greatly boosts the number of people visiting the store. In-store testing is valuable for positioning stores as health and wellness centers as well as retailers of health care products. In-store testing increases sales since a consumer who learns of a health problem through screening in the store has some likelihood of purchasing a home test kit to monitor the problem. For example, a customer who discovers a problem with high blood pressure through an in-store test is a likely candidate to purchase a home blood pressure testing kit.
In-store health care screening expands the pharmacist's role in patient care through education. Test device manufacturers have advanced the design and functionality of products to simplify usage and improve accuracy. The challenge for further improvements in health care screening is to educate consumers about the need for medical tests, and demonstrate that many tests are effectively performed by publicly available devices or at home.
A present concern is that health screening is performed on an insufficient segment of the population to efficiently prevent or treat ailments. Other concerns are that health screening is too costly, limited in scope, and time-consuming both for individual patients and health care providers. Despite these deficiencies, a strong awareness exists of a need and desire for improved health screening procedures and equipment. Health care providers, insurance companies, and employers that ultimately pay for health care have encouraged development and usage of improved, accurate, yet economic health screening facilities both for treatment and prevention of health care problems.
Generally, individual doctors and small groups of doctors have insufficient capital to maintain complete health screening facilities. Even if more health care providers were suitably equipped, typically only a small portion of the population utilizes health screening facilities due to time constraints, cost considerations, and/or general apathy.
Health care costs are a major concern in this day and age in the United States. Some commentators point out that our current national health care policy does little to incentivize preventative medicine and instead incentivizes treating major problems, at a high cost, somewhere down the line. More and better screening of patients, early and often, increases the likelihood of finding a problem early and treating it inexpensively, as opposed to finding it later and spending significantly more to correct a major health problem.
As health care costs go up, a doctor's time is also more valuable. It would be advantageous, and would save money, to allow doctors to see more patients each day.
What are needed are health screening devices, facilities, and methods that can be placed in locations that are convenient to health care customers. Suitable locations include retail outlets such as pharmacies or drug stores where customers already make health care purchases, but also may include medical offices, clinics, emergency rooms, hospitals, convalescence and elderly care facilities, work places (such as offices or factory sites), college dormitories, and the like. Health screening devices, facilities, and methods that are convenient, efficient, low in cost, and professionally accurate in screening health care data would greatly improve the general population's health.
Health screening facilities do exist. Bluth et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,692,436 describes a health care information system including blood pressure monitoring and body weight monitoring. Such systems, however, do not take advantage of more modern technologies. More and more medical testing devices have become cheaper and easier to manufacture, making their absence from such screening facilities inefficient.
Local health screening facilities that take advantage of various medical testing device efficiencies and improved twenty-first century interconnectivity through the use of broadband Internet would be advantageous.